Depression
Everyone feels sad from time to time, but depression is an intense sadness, you feel helpless, hopeless, worthless or even emotional numbness lasting for long periods of time. Becoming depressed could result from loss, low self-esteem, or many other life struggles. Depression is more common than aids, cancer, and diabetes combined, in the US nearly 400,000 attempt suicide every year. Even though it's pretty common, many people don't know much about depression and suicide.
Creativity and Depression
Creative types tend to think more, and they'll even think about their own thoughts and what it means to think a certain way. When ruminating, we tend to think about our own lives and what is essential to our own health. Creatives are more likely to think about experiences dealing with pain and suffering, they think about those painful experiences more so than others.
People tend to think about a stressful event over and over in their heads, think about the good and bad, and what they could have done differently, and how those events might affect their lives, etc.. But creatives tend to look at those events and try to understand them a bit better by replaying them in their heads over and over again.
Focusing on negative thoughts such as pain and suffering or finding themselves in a moment of deep reflection will lead that person into depression.
Many famous creative types are plagued by depression. Tennessee Williams a famous playwright and one of my personal favorites suffered from depression, as did some of my favorite artist such as Vincent Van Gogh (Starry Night) and Edvard Munch (The Scream). Go ahead and look up one of your favorite writer or artists, most likely they suffered from depression.
Vincent Van Gogh's last words were ""La tristesse durera toujours" or "The sadness will last forever".
Risk Factors of Suicide
- One or more prior suicide attempts
- Family history of mental disorder or substance abuse
- Family history of suicide
- Family violence
- Physical or sexual abuse
- Keeping firearms in the home
- Chronic physical illness, including chronic pain
- Incarceration
- Exposure to the suicidal behavior of others
Warning Signs of Suicide
- Often thinking about death
- Clinical depression -- deep sadness, loss of interest, trouble sleeping and eating -- that gets worse
- Having a "death wish," tempting fate by taking risks that could lead to death, such as driving fast or running red lights
- Losing interest in things one used to care about
- Making comments about being hopeless, helpless, or worthless
- Putting affairs in order, tying up loose ends, changing a will
- Saying things like "it would be better if I wasn't here" or "I want out"
- Sudden, unexpected switch from being very sad to being very calm or appearing to be happy
- Talking about suicide or killing one's self
- Visiting or calling people to say goodbye
Types of treatments
For any information relating to drugs I would advise you research it yourself or consult a doctor.
Types of Therapy
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT): The way it works it it shows how negative thinking can affect your mood. Your thought patterns could be contributing to your depression and the therapist shows you new ways change them.
Psychodynamic Therapy: You talk about unresolved conflicts and identify unresolved problems that could be causing your depression.
Interpersonal Therapy: The main focus is building your self-esteem to improve communications, so you can interact better with family and friends.
On a personal note
“Being disappointed is one thing and being discouraged is something else. I am disappointed but I am not discouraged.”
― Tennessee Williams, The Glass Menagerie
I often find myself thinking about my life, or just stuck in my head thinking and thinking, always introspective. But as hard as I've tried to think positively about the future, present ends up looking bleak. Happiness comes and goes, sometimes I do think the sadness will last forever as Vincent once wrote.
Even found myself wanting to get hurt just to seek attention from others. Sounds selfish and crazy I know, but when you start to feel lonely even with family and friends around, it just seems like an easier option, to test them and see if they really care.
In my instance it was wrecking my car, thinking of ways to make it look like an accident, slightly letting your hands of the car steering will and letting it drift closer and closer to the edge of the road. These thoughts would be going through my head while driving, but these thoughts haven't been in my head for awhile now.
But my biggest problem I have is feeling lonely, I used to get bad anxiety when I was with my gf and she wouldn't return my texts for a long period of time (like not saying goodnight for ex). You feel empty, sad, and when it all becomes too much to handle you become emotionally numb (emotionally detached). A feeling of not feeling anything at all, it's like walking around with your brain on but heart turned off.
You become more focused and can think more clearly, and in a way it really helps you manage your life. I've been emotionally numb now for about 3 weeks. I feel like a hollow man walking around and when I'm around other people I feel mean, not that I act aggressive toward them, I just feel mean with a fake grin on my face.
Death is an easy topic to start thinking about, especially when your depressed or a family member dies. People think about it, and it's normal to, but if you ever do think about taking your life please call the numbers below to a Suicide Hot-Line.
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Call 800-SUICIDE (800-784-2433) or 800-273-TALK (800-273-8255)
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